Sybil's Garage No. 7

Sybil’s Garage No. 7

Where can you find a television that sees five minutes into the future? Where can you find dragons trapped in a jar and an illness which turns people into glass? Where might you find families who sell their brainpower to corporations for penny wages, or dead relatives that sit down for family meals?

Why, in the pages of Sybil’s Garage No. 7, of course.

In this seventh issue of the highly acclaimed series, you will find twenty-seven original works of fiction and poetry from today’s top talent, with suggested musical accompaniment, our trademark design aesthetic, and much more. But be sure to leave a trail of breadcrumbs on your way into Sybil’s Garage, or you may not find your way out.

“Beautifully designed and printed as always, Sybil’s Garage which has been one of the best small press speculative fiction journals, graduates to anthology status. With 195 pages of fiction, poetry and graphics this is a substantial book… My favorites among the 18 short stories were M.K Hobson ‘Kid Despair in Love’ with its not terribly distant corporate warfare, Sam Ferree’s take on Charon and the River Styx, ‘The Ferryman’s Toll,’ Kelly Barnhill’s contemporary poete maudit ‘The Dead Boy’s Last Poem’, Eugene Myers’ ‘My Father’s Eyes’ about a young man’s search for a father gone very native indeed and ‘The Noise’ by Richard Larson about the life and loves of an East Village zombie. These and the other fiction and poetry are getting attention and deserve more.”– Richard Bowes, multiple World Fantasy Award-winning author (link)

“There are some excellent stories contained in this volume.”-Tangent Online (link)

“The always interesting ‘zine Sybil’s Garage is back with a thicker than usual issue (partly because of a format change). As ever, it provides a stimulating mix of SF, fantasy, poetry, and slipstream. This time around my favorite is ‘The Poincare Sutra’ by Anil Menon, a perkily told but rather dark story of a 16-year-old Coptic girl in Israel, who falls in love with a Jewish boy while her father’s past pushes him in a different direction.”Rich Horton for Locus Magazine

“Every story had something for me to like: vivid description, playful language, a character to root for, mystery, poignancy, tragedy, an intellectual puzzle, a sting in the tail.”-SFF Portal, Alison Sinclair (link)

“Each issue [is] a complete work of art…put together with a huge amount of love and attention to detail…[all the stories are] very, very well written, and if it’s literary speculative fiction you’re after Sybil’s Garage has it in spades.”-SFF Portal, Mark Watson (link)

“Sybil’s Garage achieves a satisfyingly universal appeal, and an extremely high degree of literary quality… it is pretty wonderful stuff — beautifully produced, and never dull. The stories are a mix of slipstream, near-future, horror, comedy horror, mythic and pseudo-mythic — eschewing anything as vulgar or misleading as a neat straightjacket of genre.”-SF Site, Seamus Sweeny (link)

For Issue No. 6

“Sybil’s Garage [is] one of the best run and downright prettiest of the small press magazines…”– Escape Pod,Stephen Eley, Editor, (listen to podcast)

“It’s a stylishly put together magazine, There’s plenty of poetry, art, and nonfiction in addition to the stories…My favorites included Simon Petrie’s “Downdraft”, set on another planet with intelligent zeppelins and flying human-like people. This story is about a young flyer’s ill-advised attack on one of the zeppelins — a story really about misunderstanding, with no bad guys. Also, Becca de la Rosa’s “Not the West Wind”, about, variously, and among other things: a woman in love with a guitar, the west wind, Ireland, and a foundling girl; and Sean Markey’s “Waiting for the Green Woman”, about a man with a tree for a daughter. Other strong work came from Eric Del Carlo, Genevieve Valentine, and Stephanie Campisi.”– Rich Horton, on his blog (read the full review)

“Another grouping of SF/fantasy little magazines could perhaps be described as the Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet circle. One fine fairly new example is Sybil’s Garage. Its sixth outing has plenty of fine stories and poems.”– Locus, Rich Horton (print only)

“Issue six of Sybil’s Garage from Senses Five Press is fun. ..Reading it is like wandering into a house party where you not only mingle with the guests, you peruse the décor and absorb the mix of tunes emanating from the stereo.”–The Fix, Dan Alamia (read the full review)

“This is the most interstitial volume of the innovative magazine to date. From the composite front photograph of a scarecrow emerging from a New York subway station (the G line) into a lonely pumpkin field to Susannah Mandel’s surreal page entitled “Metamorphic Megafauna” …this issue ranges widely through genres and your brain.”– The Interstitial Arts Foundation, Delia Sherman (read the full review)

“The stories were varied and all worth reading. It’s moved its home from Hoboken to Brooklyn but is still a unique mix of unusual stories, poems and articles, all with suggestions on the appropriate music to play while reading…Sybil’s Garage is still a strange little magazine with old-fashioned illustrations accompanying the text. For those that want their fiction to be truly different, this is for you.”– SFRevu, Sam Tomaino (read the full review)

“Ever since first discovering the magazine Sybil’s Garage in 2005 after being shown it by Kris Dikeman, I’ve loved the small press magazine produced by Matt Kressel of Senses Five Press. The magazine’s steady climb in quality moves to upward from an already pretty high starting point, and this issue shows the trend continuing.” – Fantasy Magazine, Cat Rambo (read the full review)

“One of writer Damien G. Walter’s challenges is that “We need more beautiful magazines” and Sybil’s Garage No. 6 easily fits that bill. While not as experimental as McSweeney’s, editor Matthew Kressel does a lot of outstanding things with this issue. Aside from the well-designed layout, each story/poem is preceded by a recommended song and this presentation is consistent. There’s also what seems like random scribblings by an enigmatic writer at the end of various texts but it all culminates into one meta-narrative that this reviewer found tear-jerking, even if it’s just a simple plot and conceit.”
– Bibliophile Stalker, Charles Tan (read the full review)